


Bad news, I've met my match

by piggy09



Series: Obscure Word Fics [9]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, F/F, No I'm lying you'll know which scene is the best thing I've ever written, SHE SHOVES A HIGH HEELED SHOE INTO SOMEONE'S EYE, This is the best thing i've ever written
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-29
Updated: 2014-05-29
Packaged: 2018-01-27 01:24:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1709897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They're spies, they kick ass, and they're in love. What more do you want?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bad news, I've met my match

**Author's Note:**

> From a prompt on Tumblr:  
> "Propunk, Teenage spies | Duende: Unusual power to attract or charm."
> 
> So, this...spiraled. It is _no longer a drabble_.
> 
> Some scenes of this are shamelessly ripped from [it was dark when i found you](http://archiveofourown.org/works/564958). It is not put as a work this is inspired by because I don't want the author to know. Sssh. ;)

The first time Rachel sees Sarah Manning, she is spitting out chunks of teeth into her hand with near-surgical precision.

Rachel was stupid enough to assume that the bathroom at a top-secret facility was no different than any other bathroom in that it was not the site for a post-mission patchup. Obviously, she was wrong.

“There’s a whole surgical wing for this,” she says (a little cattily, but who likes using the bathroom in the company of others?), sauntering up to the next sink over and leaning her hip on it. She watches through lidded eyes as the brunette prods at her teeth with her index finger, stained red with blood.

For her troubles Rachel receives a middle finger. Then the other girl sighs, leans over the sink and spits a glob of blood onto the immaculate porcelain, and turns the entirety of her attention to Rachel.

It’s like a searchlight. Rachel doesn’t blink or fidget – she’s been trained out of that – but she considers it, idly.

“Look,” her bloodied companion sighs, “you don’t look like you’ve ever been away from a bloody desk in your life, so I’ll give you a break ‘cause I’m sure a papercut’s kind of red alert for you. But this?” She gestures to herself (her arm’s a little stiff, Rachel notes clinically – bruised, maybe, attacker slightly larger, that’s consistent with the pattern of bruising emerging on her face). “This isn’t shit, so go take your piss and get your nose out of other people’s business.”

“If you bleed out on the floor I’m not disposing of your corpse,” Rachel sighs, but despite herself a smile twitches at the corner of her mouth.

“Yeah, sure, whatever,” says the other girl. Her attention is already back at the mirror.

Rachel takes her piss. If a thoughtful gaze follows her in the mirror as she leaves the stall and washes her hands, she doesn’t pay attention to it. Her nose is _firmly_ out of this strange girl’s business.

* * *

Which means of course Rachel’s next mission is with her. Of _course_.

When she walks into the briefing room and finds the brunette spinning idly in a desk chair (bruising’s healed, surgery’s probably already taken care of her teeth; the careful angle of her head suggests that, despite appearances, she could tackle anyone taking her on to the floor in less than five seconds), the first words out of her mouth are, “For the record, my nose was _pushed_ into this business and I had no part in it.”

She takes a seat on the other end of the table. Her companion stops spinning.

“ _Ho_ ly shite,” she says. “What’re you doin’ here, paper-pusher?”

“Well, I’d assume the same as you,” Rachel says, fluttering her eyelashes. “I don’t believe we’ve been properly introduced.”

The other girl opens her mouth but Rachel’s already shoved her hand across the table, easy as a declaration to war, and if that’s the neat signed document the “Rachel Duncan” she spits out is the first shot fired.

The color drains from the face across the table. “Oh, shit,” she says. “ _You’re_ Rachel Duncan.”

Rachel just looks at her. Flicks her attention to her hand. Looks back up. Narrows her eyes a little bit.

Calm strikes the other girl’s face like door slamming shut. She grasps Rachel’s hand.

“Sarah Manning,” she says – her hand is callused (rifle, guitar, three kinds of pistol) and her voice is smooth and emotionless. She knows she’s good. _Rachel_ knows she’s good, actually; stupid of her to not put the face to the name. Stupider of Sarah, though, so Rachel’s still winning. As it were.

“This does explain the sink surgery,” she says coolly, retracting her hand. It’s warm. She doesn’t overthink it.

Sarah laughs, a bright and unexpected sound. “Shit, word travels fast here. Not Helena’s fault there wasn’t a hospital nearby.”

She doesn’t have to say _not her fault the kid woke up_ ; the protectiveness is already hard and glittering in her eyes. The Manning sisters are a bit of a legend, hereabouts. Rachel’s heard more about Helena than Sarah – Helena tends to…make better stories – but she’s heard enough about Sarah to fill several ledgers.

She’s hungry to know what Sarah knows about _her_ , but she doesn’t ask.

“What’s your excuse,” she asks lightly, smirking.

Sarah winces. “Third time this month shit’s gone sideways. Doctors have started takin’ _bets_.”

Rachel’s about to say something stupid, something like _maybe you should take better care of yourself_ , something like _they taught me surgery when I was ten, if you need help_. There is nothing stupider to say to a spy than _if you need help_.

Thankfully, the door slides open with a cold _hiss_ and Rachel loses Sarah’s attention.

She can’t say she misses it.

…Really, she can’t. That means she’s in trouble.

* * *

(What Sarah knows about Rachel is unknown, but what _Rachel_ knows about Rachel is this: like Sarah’s sister, she was raised for the job.

Unlike Sarah’s sister, the training did not break her, remake her. No, Rachel was honed. Rachel is a steel blade, elegant and lacking excess. She is eighteen years old, at this time, and her kill count is higher than the amount of people she’s talked to off-mission.

She’s very, very good at what she does.

That doesn’t precisely translate to social interactions; it is difficult to make friends when you know sixteen ways to kill them without moving.

It is difficult to make friends with blood on your hands.)

* * *

The mission is something like this: go to the party. Get the files. Get out. Please do not blow anything up.

“I _hate_ the bloody parties,” Sarah hisses, grabbing onto Rachel’s shoulder for balance as she wriggles her foot in her heel. “Hate the small talk, hate the perverts starin’ down my dress, hate the obnoxious bloody music…”

Unfortunately, parties don’t hate Sarah – she’s stunning in her dress, a deep blue, her hair done up in a twist behind her head. At the party her grin spreads across her face easily; she laughs, touches men’s arms, accepts drinks but does not take a sip.

Rachel’s done the same. They all have. It’s just strange watching someone else do it.

She doesn’t have to watch for long. Their target – large, fat, white hair, white skin, the picture of excess – waddles off to a back room with a few unsubtle looks around the room. He is trailed by precisely three bodyguards – they’re subtle, but honestly to Rachel they might as well be screaming their training in the lines of their shoulders and the stiffness of their necks.

Rachel brushes against Sarah a little bit as she follows; behind her, she can hear Sarah’s laughter escalating in pitch. Covering her back.

She slips through the hallways like a ghost, dressed in gunmetal grey. Her knives are tucked securely all around her thigh.

They’re expecting her. But they aren’t _expecting_ her.

Two bodyguards lurking in front of the door to the study (one with the target, target in the room – good, he’ll be opening the safe, Rachel doesn’t have to try to find it) (not that she can’t, she can, but this way is easier) (one exit from the room and they’re blocking it, stupid) (stupid in general, really, stupidity all around).

She coaxes shakiness into her muscles – she is young, she has had too much to drink, this is her first time in heels – and walks past the door. One of them has time to furrow his brow and then Rachel is on him, heel in the groin, chop to the side of the neck.

The other one gets the drop on her; his hand is around her neck and he’s slamming her into the wall before she can turn around.

Knife out, knife in the thigh. Blood splatters the back of Rachel’s dress and she thinks a very unkind word in Mandarin; she adds a couple more words when he doesn’t let go. His other hand is grabbing vainly for hers – he’s going to try to cuff her, maybe (stupid, stupid, if he was smart he would just knock her out) – but before he can there’s a neat _thump_ and the pressure on her neck collapses.

There’s a louder _thump_ as the body hits the floor.

“Blood all over your dress,” says an amused voice from behind Rachel, and she turns and rubs absently at her neck. Sarah’s standing behind her, heels discarded – like this she’s shorter than Rachel, but the way she’s bristling with energy makes her seem bigger than life. There’s a pistol in her hand. She must have knocked out the second bodyguard with it, one solid crack to the jaw.

She’s distractingly lovely like this, her hair spiraling down from its careful updo, excitement glowing in her eyes and in the grin pulling at the corners of her mouth.

Rachel swallows, and says, “You’ve lost your purse. And your heels.”

Sarah’s grin dies, which is good. They have to be professional, the two of them.

“Funny way to say thanks for savin’ your _life_ ,” she mutters, shoving the pistol between her teeth to fiddle with her hair.

“No, don’t, you’re only going to make it worse,” Rachel sighs, pulling at Sarah’s elbow until, with a huff, the other girl spits the pistol out and relinquishes her hair to Rachel’s ministrations.

She stays very still, Sarah does. There are two bodies on the floor; the only sounds are their breathing, and hers, and Sarah’s.

“There,” Rachel says, unexpectedly soft, unexpectedly dry.

Sarah turns and looks at her for one beat, two. She opens her mouth to say something and Rachel’s stomach lurches, sick; she blurts, “Now, there’s still one man left in the library.”

Sarah’s grin returns, dangerous and lovely. “Good,” she says. “Could use a challenge.”

It isn’t one, not really, but it is a way to see Sarah Manning in action, and – there’s a reason that people say she’s good. There are probably plenty of reasons, slotted neatly in the seconds between Sarah’s movements, the space between her fist and the third bodyguard’s skin. Rachel lingers in the doorway, another knife steady and sharp between her knuckles. She watches. Her eyes narrow.

She can feel blood drying on her skin.

He’s down fast and then it’s just the target, stammering “ _please_.” At this point he knows who they are; the intent was never to be subtle, not really. If it was, it wouldn’t be Rachel and Sarah sent in, would it? No, the intent was for him to know _precisely_ who wants the file and _precisely_ which organization is now going to be breathing down his neck.

Rachel sheathes the knife back in her garter (the man’s eyes linger on her skin and she considers, idly, breaking his neck) and plucks the file from his trembling fingers to take its place.

“A pleasure,” she murmurs, and he’s opened his mouth to reply, opened it enough for Rachel to see the wet red gleaming inside of his mouth, but she knocks him out before he can complete the thought.

“Let the bodies hit the…floor,” Sarah mutters, voice thick with amusement at her own wit.

“Clever,” Rachel says, walking past her. Her heels make dull noises on the ground.

Sarah catches up to her easily; her bare feet make no sound at all. “That’s awful big talk for a girl who only took down one man, Rachel.”

Rachel shoots her a glare, sideways, and mutters, “This from a girl not wearing any shoes.”

This just sends Sarah laughing.

“Can’t get past the bloody shoe thing, can ya,” she says. “You’re just pissy ‘cause you’re _losing_.”

She leans in close and hisses in Rachel’s ear, “You _owe_ me.” Then she’s gone, padding further up the hallway.

Rachel stops for a second, her heart beating rapidly in her throat (and it has not done that for a _long_ time).

_This is not good,_ she thinks, and she can convince herself that this is because of the debt and not because she can still feel the phantom presence of Sarah’s breath on the shell of her ear.

* * *

There’s a stretch of time when Rachel is very, very busy; she hears murmurs, something about Sarah and military drones, something about Sarah and a fire extinguisher and a bathroom wall, but she doesn’t pay much attention.

Really. No attention. Not her fault rumors keep passing her way.

But, yes, she’s incredibly busy, blood thick under her immaculate nail polish, and at the end of a string of difficult missions it’s a relief to return to her room in the organization’s headquarters. Her keycard is already in her hand—

Wait. Rachel’s skin prickles; it’s an instinct honed by years and years of the work. Someone’s in her room.

Knife in hand, she slides her keycard. The door opens with a _click_ and she pauses and then _shoves_ it open, throws herself forward towards the blur of a person in the room, slamming them on her bed and straddling them with a knife to their throat before they can move.

Sarah lets out a low hiss of pain between her teeth. “You’re kneein’ me in the stab wound,” she says, strangled.

Rachel looks down. So she is. She shifts her knee a little bit.

Her brain is a tad stuck on the fact that Sarah is in her room, and also possibly a little confused about the press of Sarah’s skin against her own, feverishly warm under her jumpsuit.

“What are you _doing_ here?” she asks.

“ _Stab wound_ ,” Sarah says, sounding wounded in both the emotional and physical sense. Rachel sighs and gingerly moves off of Sarah’s prone body. She’s perched on the edge of her bed, now, feet curled a little above the ground.

Rachel can hear Sarah attempt to shove herself to a sitting position, grunt, and fall back down. “So,” Rachel says, idly considering the blank white wall in front of her, “explain.”

“Not…goin’…to surgery,” Sarah gasps. “And you owe me.”

“This is a dangerous habit and you are going to get yourself killed,” Rachel spits, but she does get up from the bed and pads to the bathroom to get her medical kit.

“Love you too,” Sarah calls, and Rachel’s heart makes a particularly heavy thump. She rolls her eyes towards the heavens – _moronic_ – closes the cupboard, and walks back.

Sarah’s looking at her from the bed, eyes narrowed and heavy with something inexplicable. With a sigh, she manages to hoists herself up (she makes a choked little noise) and unzips her jumpsuit, bunches it down around her waist. The wound is visible beneath the shadow of her ribs, clumsily stitched together.

A part of Rachel wants to blurt _what are you doing, stop_ , but it makes sense. Of course. How else is she going to get to the—

Is that _dental floss?_

“You work with what you’ve got, okay, shit,” Sarah snaps, and Rachel realizes she’s said the last part out loud.

“Your blood is going to smell like spearmint,” she mutters, and Sarah just snorts and settles back, sighing, onto her hands. Rachel seats herself next to Sarah, toeing off her shoes to curl her feet underneath her. She grabs the scissors and neatly snips the stitches; they’re not bad, certainly, but they also aren’t _good_.

“Who taught you how to do this, anyhow,” she says, distracted by the pull of the floss from Sarah’s side. There’s an awkward pause and Rachel lets her eyes flutter closed for a brief second. “Tell me,” she says slowly, “that someone taught you how to do this.”

“Could say that,” Sarah says, “but I’d be lyin’.”

Then she just hisses as Rachel slides an antibacterial wipe along her side. Her hand is out and clenched on Rachel’s knee before Rachel can say anything; her own hand doesn’t move unnecessarily until she’s certain the wound is clean.

“Not that hard, anyways,” Sarah spits out (her hand is tense on Rachel’s skin and Rachel says nothing, doesn’t move, barely breathes, continues moving the wipe in soothing mechanical motions), “just gotta reach down, pull the needle through, keep – ah! – going, yeah?”

“That’s horrifying,” Rachel murmurs, “I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that, because otherwise I’ll have to leave you here to bleed out and think about your mistakes.” She slides a needle out of the case, disinfects it, ties the thread in small delicate motions.

“Missed the class, I guess,” Sarah says in stop-starts as Rachel begins, slowly, to stitch up her side, “between, what, Ass Kicking 101 and Advanced Lookin’ Good In A Jumpsuit.”

Rachel bites her lip to keep from laughing but air blows through her nose anyways. Her hand remains steady on the needle.

“And of course you passed both, with flying colors,” she says lightly, most of her focus on the needle.

“Yeah,” says Sarah, roughly, and Rachel realizes what she’s said. But it’s too late; the wound’s stitched. She snips the end of the thread and ties a careful knot, looks up to meet Sarah’s eyes – because Sarah is looking at her, eyes narrowed again, thoughtful.

They are sitting on her bed and Sarah is not wearing a shirt; she’s looking at Sarah’s face but she can see the blurred black outline of her bra, the neat lines of scars criss-crossing her torso. They are both so young.

There’s a long, stretched-out moment, than Sarah is all kinetic energy, as if she’d decided in one instant to start moving again and fully committed herself to the idea. She shrugs the jumpsuit back on, zipping it, and sweeps her hair over one shoulder.

Then she stops, and looks at Rachel. “Thanks,” she says, unusually somber, and then she’s up and out and gone.

The space where Sarah’s hand was on her thigh is very cold. Rachel sits on her bed and breathes and does not move.

* * *

It’s another long time – another long, blurred period of time, divided equally between missions and staring at empty walls, breathing – before Rachel finds the keycard reader on her door smashed. She blinks at it. Blinks at her open door. Weighs her options.

She hasn’t decided yet (she’s hopeful, she’s _stupid_ ) when a rusty voice calls, “Come _in_ , Rachel. Come see.”

She does.

Sarah’s sister is sitting, perfectly comfortable, on a teetering pile of boxes she’s pulled from who-knows-where. There is a marker in her hand; she is casually drawing stick figures on the wall.

“Hello, Helena,” Rachel says, very carefully. “Your drawings are…nice.”

Helena hums, and adds two squiggles of hair to one of the figures – this one is holding the hand of the girl next to her, whose hair is straight. Rachel assumes it’s the Manning sisters, since she doesn’t know who else Helena would repeat over and over on Rachel’s walls.

The girl in question sighs, and mutters, “Your walls were dull. Empty.” She turns her head to look at Rachel, flicks her eyes up and down Rachel’s body, and apparently deems her unsatisfying. “Like you.”

Rachel draws breath to begin attempting to defend herself, but Helena waves a hand at her and says, “Do not speak, please. I am making art.”

What Rachel wants to know is why Helena is _here_ , in Rachel’s room, drawing with the skill of a second-grader on the wall.

“Sarah _likes_ you,” Helena continues, the marker making a particularly vicious squeak as she presses down on the wall. “Sometimes she says ‘Rachel’. I thought, maybe I will see this Rachel.”

“Do not tell Sarah,” she says, pressing a finger to her lips. “Sssh.”

_What does she say,_ Rachel wants to ask, _when she talks about me, if she talks about me, does she talk about me, what does she say._

“And,” she says instead.

Helena _sneers_ , wriggling on her box throne, her tongue lolling in her mouth. She snaps the cap back on the marker, decisively.

“As a killer you are very good,” says Sarah’s sister. “ _Very_ quick, nasty deadly Rachel.”

“Besides this,” Helena says, shrugs, “you are like a big fat cat. Yes? You lie around and wait for someone to rub your belly.” She meows a few times, for emphasis. 

Rachel has absolutely no idea what this means. Her expression doesn’t say so, but she thinks Helena may be able to feel her disbelief radiating from her skin. At this point it feels like a part of her.

Helena looks at her, and her head tilts to the side like it’s on a hinge. Then in one fast movement she hurls the pen towards Rachel’s face.

Of course Rachel catches it; she lowers her hand to her side and mirrors the angle of Helena’s head. “Was there a point,” she says, carefully neutral, “to telling me this.”

Helena barks a laugh, hops off the box pile. “Sarah likes you,” she says again. “Some of Sarah’s friends, I like. You I do not like.”

She sways very close to Rachel, who does not move. Helena smells like permanent marker and old blood. “Hurt my sister,” she hisses, “and we will see who is faster, you and me. We will see who is deadlier.”

Then she leans back and smiles, a disturbingly cheery flash of teeth. “Not that this matters,” she says with a shrug. “You and me, we are an even match, yes? You and Sarah…no. I do not think so.”

Then she turns neatly on her heel and leaves, pausing in the door to say: “Give pen back to director, please. It is his favorite.”

Then she’s gone. At some point Rachel is going to get a dramatic exit of her own against a Manning sister; she is a little sick of being left in the dust.

* * *

She does manage to get another dramatic entrance, though – _take that_ , she thinks in what she’s certain is the most childish thing that has ever passed through her head – when she finds Sarah (surprisingly) alone in what is jokingly referred to as the “mess hall,” probably because of the exhausting amount of times it has ended up splattered with blood.

Or food. Food fights between international super spies can be _deadly_.

She slides across the table from Sarah (always across tables) with a bright, “Your sister gave me the shovel talk.”

Sarah looks up from deep contemplation of her food with wide eyes; she blinks rapidly as she processes what Rachel’s just said.

“What the hell,” she says clearly.

“Wait.

…No,” she decides, “what the hell.”

“I’m flattered, really,” Rachel says, “that she considered me enough of a threat to say hello. Does she do this with _everyone?_ ”

Sarah has apparently decided to become one with the table, starting with her head.

“No,” she groans, “no, no, she definitely doesn’t do this with bloody _everyone_. Shit, Alison wouldn’t have _ever_ recovered.”

She looks up and meets Rachel’s eyes. “What’d she do,” she sighs, resigned.

“Nothing much,” Rachel says, neatly stabbing her salad with her fork. She brings the fork to her mouth and continues, “She did draw the two of you repeatedly on my wall, though.”

Pause. “In permanent marker.”

Pause.

“The _director’s_ marker.”

“Holy _shite_ ,” Sarah wails, leaning back and running hands through her hair. “I’m disownin’ her, I’m shipping her back to bloody Ukraine.”

“She’d probably go, if you asked her to,” Rachel says mildly.

Sarah looks at her, and the weight of that knowledge is heavy in her eyes. Her mouth twitches uncomfortably at the corners. There’s a beat or two of silence, and Rachel desperately wishes Helena were here, so someone could stab her in the side of the neck.

Or enemy agents. Or _something_.

“So,” she says (blurts, oh _God_ she blurts), “don’t distract me, I’m the wounded party here and I _demand_ compensation.”

She flutters her eyelashes a little, for emphasis.

Sarah blinks and she’s _Sarah_ again, raising her eyebrows at Rachel as she drags a fry through ketchup, pops it into her mouth. “Mm,” she says, swallows, “what _if_ I get you too drunk to _remember_ my sister threatened you?”

Everything in Rachel screams _absolutely not_ – a drunk spy is a garden hose with the pressure turned up too high, ricocheting. There are _consequences_.

“That would require a _lot_ of alcohol,” she says, setting down her fork, and Sarah just _grins_.

* * *

They leave headquarters – there’s a brief detour to Rachel’s living area so she can change out of her jumpsuit and grab her wallet. She slips an ID out of the rubber-banded collection, her face stuttering by on repeat. Sarah’s mesmerized by the drawings on the wall. “Holy shite,” she mutters, “part of me thought you were makin’ this up.”

“I can think of better ways to seek out your company,” Rachel says, because why not. There’s a pause where she doesn’t look up, fiddles with the ID, waits.

“Look,” Sarah says, sharp and sudden as a bullet, “she drew us. In the corner.”

Rachel puts the cards back, slips her ID into her wallet, slips her wallet into her clutch, walks over. Sure enough: there they are, stick-Sarah and stick-Rachel, holding hands.

“I would say it’s sweet,” Rachel says, “but it’s not. At all.”

Sarah hums affirmatively. “How have you even been _sleepin’_ in here,” she asks, staring at the drawing with something soft settled into the lines of her face.

Rachel shrugs, not exactly comfortable with the subject matter. It doesn’t matter how she sleeps, not really.

“You do realize the trauma from seeing these again is going to necessitate several more drinks,” she says, turning and leaving the wall behind.

Sarah makes an offended sound and falls into step with Rachel. “Oi,” she says, “that’s not part of the deal, _you’re_ the one who wanted to come back here.”

“Minor details,” Rachel says, head tilted up, and Sarah huffs out a laugh between her teeth.

* * *

They walk to a bar downtown; it’s…classier than Rachel would expect, for Sarah. When she thinks of Sarah she thinks, incongruously, of a dark room and a bottle of beer, the stale smell of sweat. Which is ridiculous, because she’s never seen her off-mission, out of base.

The shots, though? Those are all Sarah.

The column of her throat is long and lean as she tips one back, slamming the glass against the table and eyeing Rachel until she rolls her eyes and does the same. It burns, going down; shots have never been Rachel’s poison, but she’s not going to sit there and sip wine while Sarah leaves a line of empty glasses on the table.

It’s a nice place, the glossy black bar reflecting the blurred smudge of Rachel’s face, the pale flashes of her arms; her dress is just a smear of white, and so the overall impression is of a sad ghost floating in the bar.

Rachel blinks, considers how drunk she must be to make godawful metaphors.

Not drunk enough.

As if on cue, a shot slides her way from the girl next to her. She catches it, downs it, makes a face despite herself.

“Holy shit,” Sarah says in an exaggeration of breathlessness, “do that again.”

“Do what?” Rachel asks.

“Make a face that isn’t condescending as shit, go on, do it,” Sarah says, her tongue poking at the back of her teeth as she grins. Her eyes are bright and shining.

Rachel raises her eyebrows and Sarah _groans_ , tilting her head back (her throat is bared to Rachel again, pale out of the collar of her leather jacket, and Rachel wants to _bite_ it) (maybe no more shots) before swinging it around to look at Rachel again.

“That’s the total opposite of what I said,” she says somberly. “You spiteful bitch.”

Then she freezes, her gaze flicking past Rachel to the entrance to the bar, stillness running down her body like scales rattling. “What,” Rachel murmurs, not turning around – can’t be obvious – and not moving unnecessarily.

“Six of ‘em, suits, bloody _enormous_ muscles,” Sarah says, rapid-fire, the last part a little dreamy.

“Are you going to fight them or seduce them,” Rachel says, “inquiring minds,” and Sarah snorts and says, “Fight them, come on. Really? _Not_ my type.”

“Glad to hear it,” Rachel says, smiling.

Sarah smiles back and the two of them grin at each other for a second, goofy and edging towards drunk, before they remember the other men in the bar.

Tragically the men haven’t forgotten them.

The bar’s mostly empty but there’s still a scream from somewhere in the back when Nameless Thug #1 reaches for Rachel’s throat and she slides up and side-kicks him in the crotch. She doesn’t have enough power behind it to propel him very far, but he still makes it far enough to slam, bluntly, into the man behind him.

Next to Rachel Sarah’s a whirling dervish, all elbows and combat boots in _very unfortunate_ places.

Or, unfortunate for her target. Very fortunate for Sarah, from what Rachel can see as she continues her own fight.

She picks up a shot glass and throws the contents in the next man’s face, ducking under his wildly-swung arm and shooting her own elbow back with a satisfying _crunch_ which means she’s hit the nose of the oaf behind her. The shot glass follows its contents; that is, Rachel slams it into the first man’s face. There’s several ghastly crunching sounds and blood splatters her, hot and wet.

Her dress was _expensive_ , she thinks sourly, and slams the man’s head into the bar as punishment. One down.

Sarah’s vaulted the bar – the bartender apparently being smart enough to flee – and is wielding a broken bottle savagely, her grin sharp as the broken glass of it. She really needs to stop being so distractingly attractive or Rachel is going to get hurt.

Hold that thought – she slips off a heel and drives the stiletto of it into the eye of the man trying to sneak up behind her. The one whose nose she’d presumably broken is back for a second round; she whips him across the face with her shoe, pulling it out of the eye socket of the man behind her with a wet _schlick_ and backhanding him across his already-broken nose. She slides her way out of her second heel and is just in time to walk one step, two, and _crack_ the shoe into the head of the man approaching Sarah.

He topples down and Rachel takes a neat step back to avoid his body. In front of her Sarah shatters the bottle, a brilliant arc of broken glass, over the head of the final man.

There’s silence, except for the breath heaving in and out of Sarah’s chest and Rachel’s heartbeat thrumming, loud, in her ears. Sarah drops the bottle, unceremoniously. She steps over the body between them with a small _hup_ of effort and then she’s standing next to Rachel, _glowing_.

“You got blood all over you,” she says, but before Rachel can answer Sarah’s taken the final step and kissed her.

Rachel freezes, hands spread like surrender, and all she can think about is the rust-taste of blood between her lips and Sarah’s.

Then there’s a chill as Sarah’s lips part from hers, as she takes a step back; her eyes are wide and she’s saying, “Shit, wait, did you not—”

Rachel make a high, frustrated sound, grabs Sarah by the lapels of her jacket and pulls her back. This time it isn’t as elegant – Sarah’s lips crash against her own in the most perfect kind of hurt but then she softens, tilts her head just right and settles her hands on Rachel’s hips and oh, oh god, it’s perfect. It’s better than anything.

Then there’s a groan from the floor and, without breaking the kiss, Sarah unceremoniously kicks its maker in the head.

Then she does pull back, slowly, and rests her forehead against Rachel’s. “Did I forget to mention,” she says, eyes still bright as anything, “that you look _really hot_ with blood all over you.”

“You might have,” Rachel says, but before Sarah can say anything Rachel’s kissing her again, greedy. There’s six bodies in the ground and they’re going to have to report back soon, and Rachel’s going to have to sleep under the watchful, eyeless gaze of countless stick figures; for now, though, there’s this. And this, Rachel thinks, is more than worth the rest.

**Author's Note:**

> Bad news, I'm a fuse, and I've met my match.  
> So stand back, it's about to go off!
> 
> That vixen, she's a master of disguise!  
> I see danger, when I look in her eyes.  
> She's so foxy, she could lead to my demise.  
> So I'm running, 'cause I've run out of time.  
> \--"Bombshell Blonde," Owl City
> 
> Shamelessly uses the most typical lyrics you could ever use for a Spy AU, because try to stop me. Try it. I will shut you _down_. 
> 
> As always -- please leave kudos and comments if you enjoyed!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [bomb meet fuse (feat. mia remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1869228) by [piggy09](https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09)




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